Interactive voice recognition (IVR) systems are used by many telephone companies and other organizations for receiving and routing general calls. A typical IVR system presents the caller with audio announcements, typically for a menu of choices, and then asks the caller to select one of the menu choices. Over time the menu choices may change and so the operator of the IVR needs a system for updating audio announcements. At present, most IVR systems are proprietary systems and the methods for updating audio announcements are likewise proprietary.
For example, in order to change an audio file on an IVR server, local automated processes are developed to push the file from an administrative station to the multiple IVR servers. Such an updating operation entails multiple dial-up sessions between the administrative station and the IVR servers. These dial-up sessions are accompanied by automated file transfer protocol (FTP) processes that are also proprietary to the local implementation of the solutions. These solutions do not allow for universal access to the voice files.
More specifically, consider the ACMS/NAV application provided by Northern Telecom Limited. An update administrator uses an MAC based program called VDS to maintain the voice files. The program can add, delete and modify those voice files. The administrator dials up each ACMS/NAV node operations controller (OC) to transfer audio files. The administrator then establishes a Telnet session with the UNIX based OC processor and starts an update program. That program updates all the audio files for OCs connected to the local area network. The update administrator dials up multiple OCs when the ACMS/NAV applications span a large network. An alternative to this procedure is to provide the update transactions on a digital tape format that is installed manually on each OC. Both local alternatives are either time-consuming or inefficient, or both. Accordingly, there is a long-standing need for a system that will automatically maintain audio files on IVR systems.